


leave your guns at home

by rajishana



Series: hear that lonesome whistle blow [1]
Category: Marvel (Comics), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Adult Natasha Romanov, Gen, Kid Clint Barton, No Romance, Pre-Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-17
Updated: 2017-11-17
Packaged: 2019-02-03 14:33:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,791
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12750234
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rajishana/pseuds/rajishana
Summary: On his way home from school, Clint Barton meets the most beautiful woman in the world.Eventual Soulmate AU (but not just yet).





	leave your guns at home

**Author's Note:**

> I should clarify -- there is no romance in this first story because Clint is a CHILD and Natasha is a grown-ass woman. 
> 
> This just the first meeting between two people who were meant to know one another.

Today was a good day, Clint decided, even if he did miss the bus. While it was always nice to have an easy way to avoid the older boys skipping outside of Waverly-Shell Rock, Clint didn’t mind walking back home. He would just have to be a little sneakier.

As Clint slowly made his way down a long patch of road, picking up the occasional skipping rock, he thought about the test he had in his backpack, and the curly letter “A” at the very top. Mama would be proud, he thought, and since Dad was out in Cedar Falls buying cattle, Clint could spend some time playing near Old Henderson farm. Mr. Henderson had a great old tree, the biggest climbing tree in all of Waverly, and it was Clint’s favorite. Clint had spent most of last summer helping Mr. Henderson with his house chores in order to get permission to climb it. Mr. Henderson had also promised that Clint could build a tree house in there when he was twelve, so long as he didn’t cut any branches. Clint was six now, but he had already made a plan to recruit the best math teacher at Shell Rock Elementary, Miss Constance. She was always encouraging him about math and building things.

Excited, Clint struggled not to run the rest of the way to the Henderson Tree. He practiced slowing down his heartbeat, and counting them as high as he could in his head until he couldn’t count any higher. Mr. Jefferson, the PE coach, had taught Clint that, for when he was too mad or too happy or too afraid. He was very good at it, Clint decided, because he got all the way down the street and to fifty-seven by the time he forgot where he was. Then he started running anyway, because it had been almost a week since he had been climbing, ever since Mama grounded him from the roof.

Stopping whenever he ran out of breath, Clint was walking when he finally sighted the Cedar River and the big Henderson Tree out next to it. He started sprinting towards it, dropping his backpack behind him, only to stop again suddenly when he saw a stranger underneath it. Under the tree, calmly watching him approach, was the most beautiful person Clint had ever seen. She was wearing a pretty dress, he noted, the kind that his Mama often stopped to look at when they passed by the clothing stores, and her hair was bright red, redder than Barney’s, like when Dad – like the roses in Mr. Henderson’s daughter’s garden. Even from a distance, Clint could see how blue her eyes were.

After watching him for a few moments, the woman turned her head to look back at the river. Clint approached her slowly, not quite sure how to proceed. He’d met plenty of strangers and he’d gotten by fine, but his Mama had told him a hundred and one horror stories promising that wouldn’t always be so. But Mr. Henderson wouldn’t let a bad person on his farm, would he? It’s not like Mr. Henderson would just let this woman have his tree, right? He’d made Clint prove he was good for a whole summer! She probably just didn’t know, Clint thought generously. Clint would just let her know politely that this was the tree Mr. Henderson had given to him, and he could help her pick her own if she wanted one.

Clint walked up next to the woman. He struggled to think of how to say what he wanted to say without being rude.

“Who are you?” The woman asked, suddenly.

Clint jerked his head up, surprised. His hand jerked to his chest, clinching the cotton material of his shirt. People had said Clint’s _words_ to him before – they were pretty common, Mama had told him, a little worried – but it was the first time someone from _out of town_ had said them. Did she know? Was she his soulmate? She was pretty old, so that was a little weird, but not every soulmate kissed and got married. Sometimes soulmates were family, like his Dad and Clint’s Uncle Dan before he died. Or sometimes soulmates were best friends. That had happened to Mama.

What should he say back? The kids in Clint’s class had made all sorts of plans for what cool stuff they would say to their soulmate, all the crazy things that no one else would say so that their soulmate would _know_ it was them for sure. But Clint hadn’t thought of what he would say yet -- his Mama had always told him he had more time. Unsure of what to do, Clint decided to just answer the question.

“Clint Barton,” he said.

The woman’s back straightened. Even though Clint was sure her posture was perfect, now that it was gone, Clint realized that the woman had been relaxed, before. He felt his heart begin to race in his chest. Did that mean –

“Are you my soulmate?” He asked, the words tumbling out of his mouth, high-pitched and excited. “I thought you were trying to take my tree, but if you’re my _soulmate_ then we can share, I can show you the best branches –”

The woman was already shaking her head. “I cannot have a soulmate,” she said. She paused, then added, “I have no words.”

“Oh.” Clint said, deflating. “That makes sense. I guess you’re old, anyway.”

Clint felt suddenly sad for the woman. Having no words – well, for grown-ups, that was almost as bad as having a soulmate die, he knew. Maybe he should say something to cheer her up?

“You’re really pretty,” he offered.

The woman nodded seriously. “Thank you.” Clint watched the woman carefully, noticing when the woman started to relax again, her body turning towards him just a little.

Clint grinned. Encouraged by his success, he continued. “In fact, you’re the prettiest in all of Waverly,” he declared, smiling at her. “You’re a sure bet for the Corn Festival pageant this year. My Mama watches it every year, so I know.”

Clint wrinkled his forehead, a thought just occurring to him. “You’re not from around here, right?” Clint asked. “Are you moving here? You don’t seem like any Waverly person that I’ve ever met.”

“I don’t plan on moving here any time soon, no.” The woman said, then tilted her head. “What do I seem like?”

Clint thought for a moment, remembering the way she had looked out at the water, how she had no words. “You seem lonely,” Clint said finally, then asked, “Are you lonely?”

Clint watched as the woman’s lips thinned slightly. She shifted her weight, turning to face Clint fully for the first time. “No,” she said flatly.

Clint frowned. “Well, you seem like it,” Clint said under his breath. Then he asked, louder, “Are you married, then?”

The woman shook her head. She shook her head a lot, Clint thought. He wondered if she ever got dizzy. “No, I’m not married.”

Clint blinked. “Really?” Clint said, surprised. “You’re too pretty and nice to not be married, even without words!”

“I’m not nice, either,” she said, and this time Clint was the one shaking his head.

“You’re bein’ nice to me,” Clint told her. “People can be really rude when you assume they’re your soulmate by accident and they’re not.”

“You should know that being polite isn’t the same as being nice,” the woman said, her mouth tilting up, not quite into a smile.

The woman hadn’t smiled at all in the few minutes Clint had spoken to her, Clint realized. He was suddenly reminded of the women from church, the ones who would make his Mama cry as they hid smiles just like the woman did. Clint squinted at the woman suspiciously. “You laughing at me?”

Any hint of a smile was erased from the woman’s face. “I was not,” she said.

“You were!” Clint accused. “I’m telling you, I’m as smart as anybody, I can tell.” Clint clenched his fists, remembering what Barney and his Dad told him. “Nobody makes fun of a Barton,” he told her grimly.

He ignored the little part of him that wished that the woman wasn’t making fun of him like everybody else, that she wasn’t like a bunch of the grown-ups in Waverly that said things about him and Barney, thinking he was too dumb to know what they meant.

The woman paused, the cold expression on her face shifting into something more intense, more focused. “I was not making fun of you,” she said firmly, each word crisp and clear. She stared at him, her blue eyes locking onto his, until Clint had to look away, a sudden warmth in his chest as he realized she was telling the truth.

“Well, alright,” Clint said, trying to hide the wave of relief. “I guess I believe you.” Then he said quickly, continuing on as if they had never argued –

“You should fall in love and get married. That’s what people are supposed to do.”

“There’s no such thing as love,” the woman informed him, eyes still intense of his face when Clint glanced up at her to check, “and I don’t care much about what people are supposed to do.”

“Of course there’s love,” Clint said, shocked, looking up at the woman to meet her eyes fully. “You might not have a soulmate, but it’s still there.”

Clint wondered for a moment what it must feel like, to not have anybody to love. Clint’s life wasn’t the greatest, but he had his good days. He had Barney, and Mama, and even his dad, sometimes. Clint thought about the woman, and feeling lonely, and tried to think of how to best explain it all.

“Just ‘cause it’s hard to find doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. S’like…” Clint trails off, thinking hard about science class. “Thulium!” Clint produced proudly. Then he whispered to the woman, “You make lasers with it.”

The woman smiled. “Very impressive,” she said, and Clint felt his cheeks heat like a sunburn in July.

Then she asked, “Do many people try to make fun of you?”

Clint looked away from her, the heat in his face fading. Miss Constance asked him things like this, before, and questions about his Dad too, but he never answered her. Barney had told him that if he did, people would try to beat him up, or come to take him and Barney away from their Mama, and nobody would be able to protect her, then. Clint had never answered Miss Constance, but the woman wasn’t from Waverly. Maybe it would be alright to say it all, just once.

“Sometimes,” he admits. “Most people in town, they think me and Barney are trash.” Clint looked up at the woman, fists clenched. “They think I don’t hear, but I do. ‘Barton boys have the devil in ‘em.’ Sometimes the older boys from the high school start pickin’ fights, and everybody blames us when we ain’t done nothin’ but walk past ‘em.”

Clint felt his eyes burn and he shook his head quickly, trying to make it stop. “It’s not _fair_.”

“Life is not fair.”

Clint snapped his head up, anger and betrayal welling in his chest, but the woman’s eyes were surprisingly gentle.

“Life is not fair,” the woman repeated, once Clint was paying attention, then added, “but you can make yourself strong enough to beat them anyway.”

Clint opened his mouth, not quite sure how to respond, when the woman spun around, faster than lightning, hand reaching into her pocket.

“I never thought the Black Widow would be distracted by a child.”

Clint glanced beyond the woman, and was horribly confused.

“Mr. Kuznetsov?”

If Mr. Henderson was like Mr. Rogers, then Mr. Kuznetsov was like the Grinch. He had lived in Waverly longer than Clint had been alive, almost fifteen years. He’d almost been here long enough to not be called an out-of-towner anymore, but the mean old man was hated almost as much as the Bartons were. Clint had accidently swum across the river to Mr. Kuznetsov’s side once and Mr. Kuznetsov caught him. Clint’s backside had bled on his way back home, and he’d had a hell of a time hiding the switch marks from Mama and his dad. The next week, Barney had pulled up all of Mr. Kuznetsov’s plants, but that hadn’t done any good.

Now, for some reason, he was holding a shotgun.

“Mikhail Volkov.” The woman said, unsurprised. Clint watched as the woman carefully reached deeper into her pocket.

“I don’t think so,” Mr. Kuznetsov said, gun remaining trained on the woman. The woman stilled, her attention focused on Mr. Kuznetsov’s face. “Remain completely still, or I will shoot you.”

“The General is not pleased with you,” the woman said calmly.

Clint thought furiously. He couldn’t let Mr. Kuznetsov hurt the woman.

If only he could just –

“You have been hiding out here a long time,” the woman continued.

Mr. Kuznetsov snarled. “I shall not be taken by the likes of –”

Clint threw his stone, aim perfect from hunting rabbits with Barney. The stone made impact with a dull _thud_ , blood spurting out from Mr. Kuznetsov’s head, his hand coming up instantly to cover the wound as he rocked back with a surprised cry.

Then the woman moved, faster than Clint had seen anybody move before. Between the count of one heartbeat and another she seemed to dance, her red hair flashing in the scattered sunlight under the old Henderson Tree. Clint sucked in a breath, his arm coming to rest after his throw. Mr. Kuznetsov collapsed to the ground in an instant.

Then the woman stilled, and Clint realized that he had just seen the most beautiful woman in the world kill someone like it was nothing. Distantly, Clint thought the world should be quieter somehow, less colorful, but birds were still chirping from a distance and the woman was still the brightest thing he had ever seen.

He should run, Clint thought, watching the woman stand over the body. She was going to kill him too, Clint knew, deep down in his gut like he knew how his Mama cried at night when Dad fell asleep drunk on the couch or how he knew Barney always made an ice pack when he got back from school, just in case. He knew it like he knew all of the dark things he kept pushed out of his head.

Then the woman turned back to look at Clint, and it was too late. Clint was frozen, stuck counting each and every heartbeat as the woman took slow, measured steps towards him.

He might have been short for his age, but she wasn’t very tall either, Clint thought distantly as his face lifted to look up at her, her face was masked by shadow in the shade of Clint’s favorite tree. Clint could still see her eyes, though, blue like the sky in the middle of summer. The woman’s hand came up from her side to grasp Clint’s chin between her thumb and forefinger, and Clint felt a jolt of electricity course through his system. He hadn’t thought he could be paying any more attention to her, but he was now, and her fingers were gentle on his face and Clint thought, _maybe it won’t be so bad_ and then _when Mama said I’d catch my death out here, she wasn’t kidding_. Clint listened to the seconds between his heartbeats. He watched every flicker of her eyes as they moved back and forth over his face, deciding something. Then she said –

“You have keen eyes, Clint Barton. I am interested to see what path they will find for you.”

The woman stepped back, releasing Clint from her grasp as something bloomed in Clint’s chest. Clint had never felt this, the relief and grief and happiness welling up inside, for anyone else besides Mama and Dad and Barney. It was the feeling that made his heart feel wide and full and aching, three sizes bigger than it should be, but he felt it now. Clint knew, suddenly and fiercely, that it must be love.

“Now leave,” the woman said. “I have business to do here and you do not want to be here when I do it.”

Clint didn’t hesitate, turning his back and running away, grabbing up his backpack as he ran. When Clint slowed down, out of breath, and looked back, the woman was still there, as still and calm and beautiful as when Clint first saw her.

 

 

Weeks later, when Mama mentioned that the Sheriff had put up some missing person posters for Mr. Kuznetsov, Clint said nothing at all.


End file.
